Fair Farms Partners with Farmers to Help Stop the Spread of Superbugs

Farmers care about the health of their families and communities just as much as anyone. That’s why Fair Farms is partnering with farmers to help address the issue of antibiotic resistant superbugs.

Estimates suggest that 70% of the medically important antibiotics sold in the United States are sold to raise chickens, hogs, and cattle on large farms. Shockingly, these antibiotics are often used routinely not for the treatment of sick animals, but to help them gain weight or prevent disease caused by unhealthy and unsanitary conditions.

Antibiotics are made to help us heal, but unnecessary overuse speeds up the creation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that travel from farms through contaminated food, the handling of equipment and animals, airborne dust blowing off farms, or water and soil that has been polluted with contaminated feces. Overuse of human antibiotics in farm animals is seen as one of the prime culprits in the 2 million illnesses and 23,000 deaths caused by drug-resistant bacteria each year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fair Farms is part of the Maryland Campaign to Keep Antibiotics Working, which seeks to restrict the regular use of human antibiotics in livestock that are not sick. Together, we are asking farmers to sign this petition urging legislators to take action.

If you are a farmer willing to endorse this effort, please consider signing this petition. We really appreciate your support!

If you shop at farmer’s markets or through CSAs, please consider asking the farmers you buy from if they would be willing to sign the petition. We can give you a print-out to bring with you. Email danfurmansky@gmail.com for more information.

Farming is not one-size-fits-all. But it is possible to farm without the misuse of human antibiotics—and without harming animal welfare or farm profits.

In October, California Governor Jerry Brown signed the strongest antibiotics bill of this type in the country—a law that goes beyond federal regulations. We think Maryland should be next. Let’s keep antibiotics for animals that are sick so that we can protect both animals and people!

In January 2016, a bill will be reintroduced in the Maryland Legislature to ban the routine use of medically-important human antibiotics for animals that are not sick. Along with public health experts, farmers have the most important voice in this critical conversation.